Warner Bros. Creates DC Entertainment

September 9, 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS188674+09-Sep-2009+BW20090909

Diane Nelson to Serve as President, DC Entertainment

Paul Levitz to Segue from President & Publisher of DC Comics to Writer, Contributing Editor and Overall Consultant to DC Entertainment

BURBANK, Calif.--(Business Wire)--

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI) has created DC Entertainment Inc., a new company founded to fully realize the power and value of the DC Comics brand and characters across all media and platforms, to be run by Diane Nelson, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, and Alan Horn, President & COO, Warner Bros.

DC Entertainment, a separate division of WBEI, will be charged with strategically integrating the DC Comics business, brand and characters deeply into Warner Bros. Entertainment and all its content and distribution businesses. DC Entertainment, which will work with each of the Warner Bros. divisions, will also tap into the tremendous expertise the Studio has in building and sustaining

franchises and prioritize DC properties as key titles and growth drivers across all of the Studio, including feature films, television, interactive entertainment, direct-to-consumer platforms and consumer products. The DC Comics publishing business will remain the cornerstone of DC Entertainment, releasing approximately 90 comic books through its various imprints and 30 graphic novels

a month and continuing to build on its creative leadership in the comic book industry.

In her new role, Nelson will report to Jeff Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group, in order to best capitalize on DC Entertainment`s theatrical development and production activities and their importance to drive its overall business with each of the divisions of Warner Bros.

Nelson will bring her expertise and more than 20 years` experience in creative brand management, strategic marketing and content development and production to ensuring DC Entertainment`s dual mission of marshalling Warner Bros.` resources to maximize the potential of the DC brand while remaining respectful of and collaborative with creators, talent, fans and source material. Additionally, Nelson will continue to oversee the franchise management of the Harry Potter property, which she has done since 2000, and also continue to represent the Studio's interests with the author of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling. Nelson will segue from her post as President, Warner Premiere but maintain oversight responsibilities of that division. (An executive succession plan for Warner Premiere will be announced shortly.)

Paul Levitz, who has served as President & Publisher of DC Comics since 2002, will segue from that role to return to his roots as a writer for DC and become a contributing editor and overall consultant to DCE. This transition will take place as expeditiously as possible without disrupting DC`s business operations.

In his new role, Levitz will be called upon for his deep knowledge and more than three-decade history with DC Comics, both as a comic creator and an executive. Besides serving as a writer on a number of DC Comics titles, he will be a contributing editor and consultant to DC Entertainment on projects in various media. Additionally, he will consult as needed on the transition and integration of the DC Comics organization into DC Entertainment and will utilize his unique experience, knowledge and relationships with the comics industry`s creative community to help achieve DC Entertainment`s goal of maximizing the value of DC properties. Further, Levitz will advise DC Entertainment on creative and rights-holder relationships, in particular regarding the legacy relationships that have been a part of DC Comics for decades.

Widely recognized and respected for his support of writers, artists and creators in the comics industry, Levitz is best known creatively for his work with DC Comics, having written most of the classic DC characters, including Batman, Wonder Woman and the Superman newspaper strip. At Comicon International in 2008, Levitz was awarded the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award as part of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the only industry executive ever so honored.

"DC Comics and its super hero characters are truly touchstones of popular culture, and the formation of DC Entertainment is a major step in our company`s efforts to realize the full potential of this incredible wellspring of creative properties," said Meyer. "Diane knows our studio as a creative executive, amarketer and a senior manager, and this varied background will help her effectively and creatively integrate the DC brand and properties across all our businesses. We`re also thrilled that Paul will remain involved with DC and we`ll be able to tap his expertise to help us reach our goals for this new business."

"It`s no secret that DC has myriad rich and untapped possibilities from its deep library of iconic and lesser-known characters," said Horn. "While we`ve had great success in films and television, the formation of DC Entertainment will help us to bring more DC properties across additional platforms to fans around the world, while maintaining brand integrity and authenticity. Diane is a terrific choice to lead DC Entertainment, and with Paul in his new role as a valued consultant and contributing editor, both our company and comic fans win."

"Based on the great success we`ve had working with DC Comics to create some of the most popular and successful super hero films of all time, I`ve long believed that there was much more we could do across all of Warner Bros.` businesses with this great body of characters and stories," said Robinov. "The prioritization of DC and the creation of DC Entertainment is a great opportunity that reaches far beyond the film group. There are endless creative possibilities to build upon the many significant successes already achieved by my colleagues Kevin Tsujihara and the Home Entertainment Group in the videogame, home video and direct-to-platform arenas and Bruce Rosenblum and the Television Group in live-action, animated and digital series. Collectively, we have the ability to grow a body of properties highlighting the iconic characters and the diversity of the creative output of DC Comics."

"The founding of DC Entertainment fully recognizes our desire to provide both the DC properties and fans the type of content that is only possible through a concerted cross-company, multi-platform effort," said Nelson. "DC Entertainment will help us to formally take the great working relationships between DC Comics and various Warner Bros. businesses to the next level in order to maximize every

opportunity to bring DC`s unrivalled collection of titles and characters to life."

"After so many roles at DC, it`s exciting to look forward to focusing on my writing and being able to remain a part of the company I love as it grows into its next stage," said Levitz. "It`s a new golden age for comics and DC`s great characters, and I hope my new position will allow me to contribute to that magic time."

DC Comics will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2010 (NEW FUN COMICS #1, the first DC comic, began publishing in 1935), at which time more explicit details regarding DC Entertainment`s corporate and management structure, film and content release slate, creative roster and business objectives will be unveiled at a multi-faceted anniversary celebration and press conference in the first quarter of the year.

Current DC properties in development and/or production at Warner Bros. Entertainment include:

-- "Human Target" is being produced by Warner Bros. Television for a mid-season debut on Fox.

-- "Midnight Mass" is in series development at Warner Bros. Television for consideration for the 2010-11 season.

-- "Jonah Hex," Warner Bros. Pictures` supernatural Western starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox and John Malkovich, recently wrapped production in Louisiana.

-- "The Losers," Dark Castle/Warner Bros. Pictures` action-adventure drama starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans, began principal photography mid-July in Puerto Rico.

-- "The Green Lantern," Warner Bros. Pictures` next big superhero tentpole release, recently cast Ryan Reynolds as the titular character. The film has a projected second quarter 2011 release date.

-- "Lobo," based on the DC Comics anti-hero, has Guy Ritchie attached as a director; Joel Silver, Akiva Goldsman and Andrew Rona are producing for Silver Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures.

-- Warner Premiere`s direct-to-platform DVD animated release of "Green Lantern: First Flight" debuted July 28.

-- Warner Bros. Animation currently produces "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," which airs on Cartoon Network.

-- Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment released "Batman: Arkham Asylum" on August 25, a dark, action packed videogame adventure for Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation3 computer entertainment system and Games for Windows.

Prior to being named President, DC Entertainment, Nelson most recently served as President, Warner Premiere since its founding in 2006. Warner Premiere is a Studio-based production company which develops and produces high-quality, direct-to-DVD and short-form digital content, including the highly successful line of DC Universe animated DVD titles, and also pioneered the development of the motion comics category. Under Nelson`s leadership, Warner Premiere functions as a full-service production entity with its own resources and release schedule, furthering the Studio's mandate of being a destination for both established and up-and-coming talent to create stand-alone properties as well as experiment in new media.

Before that, Nelson served as Executive Vice President, Global Brand Management, Warner Bros. Entertainment, with the primary responsibility of working cross-divisionally and throughout Time Warner to maximize and optimize all the various windows and outlets available to the Studio`s signature franchises, brands and event properties on a global basis. In this post, Nelson`s primary focus was the management of the Harry Potter brand, which she has overseen since the brand`s launch at the Studio in 1999. These efforts have helped drive the success of the brand to become the most successful film franchise of all time, as well as a respected consumer property that has generated billions of dollars for the Studio.

At Global Brand Management, Nelson and her team of more than 15 employees worked in all media and platforms to support a number of other key franchise properties, including "The Matrix Reloaded," "The Matrix Revolutions," "Batman Begins," "The Dark Knight," "Happy Feet," "Polar Express" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," among others.

Prior to overseeing Global Brand Management, Nelson had served as Executive Vice President, Domestic Marketing, Warner Bros. Pictures. Nelson rose quickly through the ranks, having also served as Senior Vice President, Domestic Marketing, Warner Bros. Pictures and prior to that, Senior Vice President, Family Entertainment, Warner Bros. Corporate Worldwide Marketing and Planning. She was also Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Promotions, a post to which she was promoted in March 1998, after joining the Studio in September 1996 as Director of Worldwide Corporate Promotions.

Nelson came to the Studio from Walt Disney Records, where she served as Director of National Promotions. She is a graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications.

Warner Bros. Entertainment

Susan Fleishman, 818-954-1919

susan.fleishman@warnerbros.com

or

Scott Rowe, 818-954-5806

scott.rowe@warnerbros.com

or

DC Comics

David Hyde, 212-636-5450

david.hyde@dccomics.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009

Rumored Apple Tablet Might be Digital Comics’ Future

September 3, 2009

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090903-apple-tablet-comics.html

As rumors about a new Apple touch-screen tablet heat up, it's looking more and more likely that Spider-Man and Superman may soon be read by using fingers to zoom and scroll through a digital comic book.

"It’s starting to look more and more firm that we’ll see something in early 2010, but details are still absolutely mysterious," said Andy Ihnatko, technical writer and contributor to the Chicago Sun-Times, MacWorld, and the CBS Early Show. "I guess this is like an early warning system of something really happening, where little crumbs of information start building up."

With recent black and white comics already doing well on Amazon's Kindle, the potential of comics being available on a larger-screen color device from Apple looks promising.

"I really believe the tablet is absolutely necessary to move comics into the digital realm," said Ihnatko, who thinks the tablet will probably be somewhere around 3" x 5" or 5" x 7", offering a more preferable size for comic reading. "Publishers trying to go digital, in most cases, have missed the point up until now. They just don’t know how to deal with taking a story designed to fill up an entire page and trying to make it work on a smaller iPhone screen or smaller handheld screen. What they do is they tend to force the path that the reader takes throughout the comic book.

"We’re going to need to see the full page," said Ihnatko, a comic book reader himself. "We’ll need to look wherever we want to look. Artists will have to have the freedom to design the page however they want it to go for it to really work. That’s why we want a nice, big color screen that can at least give you the top half or bottom half of the page and scroll very neatly and very cleanly."

Ihnatko said that people who haven't enjoyed the ability to read comic books on their computers or their iPhones aren't only rejecting those delivery method because they're digital. "I think that what they’re attached to is not necessarily the paper comic. I think what they’re attached is something that they recognize as a comic book," he said. "Once you give them something they don’t recognize as a comic, they disconnect from it. But with a tablet-sized reader, it can be scrolled through like a comic."

Although the announcement of an Apple Tablet is not likely to be the subject of the company's launch event on Sept. 9th, the approaching event has everyone looking for clues about what Apple is developing behind the scenes. Tech news sites and magazines have been filled with possible "evidence" of the Apple Tablet, from manufacturing orders to software developments.

The latest so-called evidence was the fact that Apple's newest operating system, Snow Leopard, includes an easily accessible screen-based keyboard that can be enlarged to a size that offers finger-sized keys.

"We’re seeing parts manufacturers start to gear up to produce odd-looking components and alleged orders being placed for things. It’s really hard to describe something this vague," Ihnatko said. "It’s sort of like that scene in "Jurassic Park". They realize the T-rex is testing the fences. They don’t know that something big is happening on a certain date, but they know that something now is definitely up. As usual, Apple will release only when they’re ready to do it. Even if they have something that’s working that’s sellable, if at the end they decide, 'This isn’t quite what we want it to be,' then they’ll just scratch it and wait another few months. You can never tell."

But Apple may not be the first to offer an electronic reading device that could be utilized by the comic book industry to display color comic books. Just last week, Stephen Christy, director of development at Archaia, said all the comic books his company is coding for Amazon's Kindle are being coded in color as the company anticipates future colors versions of the device.

"Whenever that future version comes out in color, all the files will be forward compatible. So if you download "The Killer", it will be in color," he said.

And just Thursday, Toshiba announced that it would release a touch-screen tablet, called the JournE Touch. The device, which would retail for around $360, has a seven-inch screen and is a half-inch thick weighing under a pound. With integrated Wi-Fi and Windows CE, the Toshiba tablet is intended as a home device that allows users to quickly access the internet on a bigger screen without having to go to a larger home computer.

When Newsarama talked to Ihnatko in February, he further fueled tablet rumors by sharing stories about Apple coding books for sale on iTunes. But the tech expert said he no longer thinks that's Apple's priority.

"Having an iTunes bookstore would have been a really important thing for them to do last year before anybody really had a big foothold in this market. Right now, they might be in the position of coming out with an iTunes bookstore that would simply exist alongside all these other digital bookstores," Ihnatko said. "It would be hard for them to produce a library of copyrighted digital content that would exceed what’s already out there. Again, I think it’s very possible for them to do that within the iTunes store, but it’s no longer quite so necessary. The Kindle app for the iPhone kind of demonstrated that it’s possible to have a very good, viable e-book feature for an iPhone without having to own the book market."

And while Ihnatko acknowledged that electronic readers like the Kindle are not necessarily a booming market, they are successful enough now to imply that a multi-media device from Apple could succeed in areas others can't touch.

"Any time Apple does something, it makes it cool for everybody," he said. "They’re the ones who do it – they don’t necessarily do it first, but they do it absolutely right. Again, look at the music player. They redefined music players. Look what they did with phones. They redefined phones. Not because they were the first people to have a phone that was actually a computer, but they’re the first ones to do it in a new, compelling way that turns it into just another really cool device. If they were to come out with a table device that has a really good color screen on it, it would be a successful product almost by definition. People would go out and buy it because it’s Apple and because it works."

And for the comic book industry, that new marketplace, on a device that would display comics in the way they were intended, would open a whole new door for digital comics, he said.

"It would be the first table type device that would be really suitable towards displaying comics," Ihnatko said. "So it would make the market for comic books that much broader and that much more relevant. Even if they didn’t own the comic book market, the next company that is thinking about doing the color book reader would be that much more encouraged to go ahead and do it because Apple has demonstrated that there are people out there who want to buy it."

Via DC: A Letter from Paul Levitz

September 9, 2009

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/09/09/via-dc-a-letter-from-paul-levitz/

Thank you for your efforts, your support, and your contributions to DC Comics over the long years that I’ve had the honor of serving as part of DC’s leadership team. Together, our staff, creative contributors, readers, retailers and business partners have helped bring us to the beginning of what looks to be a new golden age for comics in the United States, and one that will bring more respect for the talent and the medium.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who’s heard me answer a comic convention request, “When are you going to do more Legion stories?” that I’m going to step away from my executive desk in coming months to resume my writing career, in comics and hopefully other forms as well. One of the lessons I learned from my many great teachers, from Frank McCourt through Joe Orlando and Jenette Kahn, is that creative work is more enduring than executive acts, and I look forward to adding to the stories I’ve told. Expect to see my byline at DC, as it has appeared for almost 37 years, adding what I can to a mythology and company that has my enduring affection, and expect to see me around the world of comics, which I hope never to leave. I already hear Karen and Dan sharpening their blue pencils with glee, waiting for my first pages.

DC will remain in the hands of the people who have had ultimate responsibility for its success throughout the past two decades, the management team of Warner Bros., headed by Barry Meyer and Alan Horn. They have encouraged our growth as a creative enterprise, and I have confidence that the people they will select to join the DC team, beginning with Diane Nelson, will do their best to make DC a success. While that transition process is taking place, I’ll continue to run DC until the baton can be carefully passed, and afterwards will have a role in which I can provide my advice and help.

On a personal note, I deeply appreciate the warmth and friendship I have found in these halls since my first visit, as a 13 year old comics fan. The relationships I have made here, including one that began in a DC circulation meeting and developed into the first DC marriage in four decades (thereby rebooting a grand tradition?), have been and will remain central to my life.

And now, if you forgive me, the future is calling.

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